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Clever Dog “Lucky” Starts Dinner for His Chinese Owner –  Video

Ila Bonczek
Ila lives in the Garden State with her family and four chickens. She has been growing produce and perennials for 20 years, and recommends gardening for food and fun, but not for fortune.
Published: June 7, 2022

Many animals are very intelligent and can learn human skills that not only fascinate us, but can also be extremely useful. For instance, one clever dog, a pet Husky in eastern China, understands his owner—a man from Zhejiang province with the last name of Zhou—well enough to follow verbal instructions for starting dinner.

Six-year-old Lucky was a puppy when he came to live with Zhou, who has taught him how to perform a variety of simple household chores. Although he only seems to understand Zhou, who admitted “He seems unable to understand what my wife says,” his ability to follow directions from his master is truly remarkable.

Lucky has mastered basic tasks like turning off lights, opening drawers to fetch select objects, flushing the toilet, and fastening a seat belt—which Zhou claims was learned in a matter of minutes. 

As Qianjiang Evening News reported recently, Zhou was out running errands when he realized it was going to take longer than expected, which would mean a delayed dinner. He had already washed rice and put it in the rice-cooker for dinner, so he called his dog to turn the appliance on. 

A one-minute video that quickly went viral in Chinese social media shows Lucky lying on the kitchen floor, when Zhou’s voice comes through their remote home surveillance device. “Lucky, I’m on a long line for the nucleic acid test. Can you push on the switch for the power strip on the rice cooker?” 

Lucky is then seen standing on his back legs to reach the kitchen counter, where he presses the power strip switch to “on.” 

Next, Zhou asks him to turn on the appliance, something Lucky has never done before. Zhou clarifies, “The electric cooker, not the power strip. The nearby one.”

The first attempt is unsuccessful, but Zhou is patient and tells him to try again and press harder. Lucky follows the instructions and we see the light to the appliance turn on. 

clever-dog-flickr
Only a clever dog like Lucky would be able to follow remote instructions and successfully turn on an electric rice cooker. (Image: abex via Flickr CC BY-SA 2.0)

Pleased with Lucky’s work, Zhou promises the dog a reward, “How fabulous! I will prepare delicious food for you when I return home.”

He and Lucky have a “tacit understanding,” Zhou revealed. “He will understand what I mean through the expression in my eyes or just from a simple hand gesture.”

Zhou, a full-time pet video blogger, explained that although the clip is only one minute long, it took a lot of training time to achieve the end result. The dog-and-owner team effort appears to have paid off, however. The video, uploaded to the Chinese video app Douyin last week, has since received 135,000 likes and over 110,000 shares.

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